Council accused of peering into private lives

Carlton resident Linda Bond was alarmed recently to see a camera on a pole peering over her back fence from the lane behind her house. Photo: Wayne Taylor

The City of Melbourne is employing Google Street View-style camera monitoring of its property in inner city residential streets.

A Carlton woman claims she saw a council contractor filming backyards, with the camera gazing over fences.

But the council says the $93,000 project – which it hasn't advertised – is capturing images only of roads, council-owned buildings, street furniture and signs, and not private properties.

Linda Bond said she was in the backyard of her Princes Street house on Friday July 5 when she spotted a camera on a pole peering over her back fence.

Stepping into Victoria Lane behind her house, she saw the pole and camera was attached to a white SUV with Queensland number plates.

Miss Bond said she had received no warning the council was taking footage and regards it as a disturbing invasion of privacy.

She said that when she asked the two men in the vehicle what they were doing they said they were "doing some work for the council" and handed her a letter.

She was too shocked to ask more questions – "I didn't have time to think about it and digest it and ask them any more questions" – but she took a photo of the vehicle on her iPhone.

The letter, on City of Melbourne letterhead, bears the signature of Pauline Lawson, the council's acting manager of property services, and says: "To whom it may concern: The City of Melbourne has appointed MapData Services to undertake a contract to capture and deliver earthmine imagery for public roads under the control of the City of Melbourne.

"The image capture and delivery should be completed by 17 September 2013."

Miss Bond said she was baffled by the terms "capture and deliver" and "earthmine imagery", and wasn't convinced it was a roads project.

"All I saw from my backyard was those cameras and to me they could see what was happening in everybody's backyard along there.

"It didn't seem to me like they were particularly aimed at the road, which is what the letter describes... It's a total invasion of privacy. If it's from the council I would expect they would be gathering information on renovations and things like that, to see if there was anything dodgy at the back of people's houses, even dope plants, just whatever is in people's backyards that you'd think would be kind of private.

"I just think it's invasive," she said.

"I don't know if, as a ratepayer, that gives them the right to come and film over my fence. I would have thought they'd need my permission to do something like that."

A City of Melbourne spokeswoman said the technology was being used for the first time in a survey across the municipality and involved one vehicle.

She said that it was capturing images of City of Melbourne-owned objects and property frontages that were visible from public roads.

The purpose was "to maintain our assets for the use, safety, and comfort of our residents, workers and visitors".

Assets included streets, lanes, street furniture and trees, and the work could involve working with other agencies like utility and telecommunication companies. "New technology helps us do this is in the most efficient and effective way."

The spokeswoman said MapData Services had been appointed "to capture images along public roads controlled by the City of Melbourne for internal use only".

"There is no intention to capture, use or display any image data which cannot normally be seen from the street."

The image capture component was expected to be completed within the next two weeks, then anything in the images that might identify anyone would be blurred out.

The purpose was "for ongoing asset maintenance and not specifically related to a major project".

"Community privacy is protected as the images are not being made available to the public and are only being for used for council purposes."

The term "earthmine imagery" refers to a 3D system to capture ground level images with greater accuracy.

"This is the first time that earthmine imagery capture has been undertaken for the City of Melbourne," the spokeswoman said.

"In this instance residents were not notified as the project is intended to capture City of Melbourne assets and property frontages visible from public roads only."